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| Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) |
Presently, the world energy consumption is 10 terawatts (TW) per year, and by 2050, it is projected to be about 30 TW. The world will need about 20 TW of non-CO2 energy to stabilize CO2 in the atmosphere by mid-century.The simplest scenario to stabilize CO2 by mid-century is one in which photovoltaics (PV) and other renewables are used for electricity (10 TW), hydrogen for transportation (10 TW), and fossil fuels for residential and industrial heating (10 TW). Thus, PV will play a significant role in meeting the world future energy demand. The present is considered as the “tipping point” for PV.
The PV effect was discovered in 1839 by Becquerel while studying the effect of light on electrolytic cells. A long period was required to reach sufficiently high efficiency.
Solar cells developed rapidly in the 1950s owing to space programs and used on satellites (crystalline Si, or c-Si, solar cells with efficiency of (6–10%).
The energy crisis of the 1970s greatly stimulated research and development (R&D) for PV.
Solar cells based on compound semiconductors (III–V and II–VI) were first investigated in the 1960s. At the same time, polycrystalline Si (pc-Si) and thin-film solar cell technologies were developed to provide high production capacity at reduced material consumption and energy input in the fabrication process, and integration in the structure of modules by the deposition process and consequently cost reduction for large-scale terrestrial applications.
In the following posts, we review the current status of the PV market and recent results on several leading types of solar cells, such as c-Si, pc-Si, and amorphous-Si (a-Si), and III–V, II–VI, and I–III–VI2 semiconductors and their alloys and nano-PV.
